Things 4

Things I eat on a fairly regular basis:

cereal

soy milk

chocolate

orange juice

home made pizza

potatoes

pasta

Warm Delights

apples

blended fruit smoothie drinks

Twix

brownies

cutie oranges

Things 3

Things I find hilarious and/or depressing:

Doing a session at the temple and being the only single guy in the room

Being old enough to audition for the part of a father

Having a bald spot

Laura Bedore

Hale Center Theater's lack of chutzpah

Watching my students mark wrong answers I know they know the right answer for

Watching the snow come down on Thursday

Congress

Choose Clean Air

As a slightly hilarious Earth Day follow up, enjoy the following starring yours truly.

Introductions:



Drive Less:




Drive Smarter:

Gleeful

I auditioned for GLEE. Check it out:

http://www.myspace.com/gleeauditions?link=10986709

Mother, I love you.

Though I do love my mom dearly, today I'm channeling my inner hippie to pay tribute to a different mother: Earth.

Yesterday was Earth Day - which is quickly climbing to the top of my list of favorite holidays. We didn't get the day off school, but that doesn't mean we didn't celebrate. We started potato sprouts (with supplies I bought that morning and carried to my car in my reusable shopping bag), learned about the water cycle, watched some amazing footage from Planet Earth, and cleaned up the trash off the playground.

Once home I planted some seeds in a couple of flower pots I own, and one I made from an old milk carton.

*imminent soap box approaching*

100 years ago there were about 2 Billion people on Earth. Today there are nearly 7 Billion. In the next 40 years that will increase to over 9 Billion. That's a lot of people. And we're making a big dent. Last year our field trip was to the Landfill. We learned that landfills are designed to hold 12 year's worth of trash and we're filling them up in 5. Yikes.

This is a pretty fascinating look at some worldwide stastistics. Some of them are kind of scary. To sum up some of the more interesting stats - The world population increases by about 3 people every second, there are more overweight people than undernourished people in the world (about a billion of each), Earth has traveled about 290,000,000 km so far this year, there have been 2.2 billion Google searches today, there are appx. 15,000 days til all the oil on Earth runs out (that's about 40 years), the average temperature on the planet is 14.5 degrees Celsius (58.1 F), and so far today - it's about 5:20 - world governments have spent $6.3 Billion on healthcare - yep that's just today. There really are lots of other neato statistics on there, so take a look.

Anyway, in celebration of our planet, here are some easy things you can do to go green and make a difference:

Energy-efficient light bulbs

Recycle Electronics

Do full loads of laundry, and wash clothes in cold water

Support local farmers

Install a low-flow shower head

Walk or bike to work

Fix a leaky faucet

Let Your Grass Grow*

Make your own cleaning products

Turn lights, electronics, and appliances off when you're not using them

Buy reusable shopping bags and water bottles

Reuse or recycle plastic bags, bottles, and cartons

Have an energy audit done on your home

And my personal favorite of the day:

Remember - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Go Earth!

*Spending less time tending to your actually makes it greener -- in every sense of the word. Most grass species fare best when they're kept at least 2 1/2 inches tall. The length creates more surface area to absorb sunlight, which creates thicker turf and deeper roots, which means you won't need to water as often. Save money by letting grass clippings remain on your lawn; it adds nitrogen and discourages weed seeds from germinating. You'll need less fertilizer and herbicide. Plus, leaving clippings on lawns means less in landfills; in 2005 Americans disposed of more than 12 million tons of yard waste.

Things 2

Things I love to do:

Sing in the shower

Eat brownies out of the pan

Nap

Get a massage

Read

Laugh

Play juicy characters on stage

Shop for children's books

Make fun of movies

Walk in good weather

Wear cardigans

People watch

Things 1

Things I don't have time to do:

Write this blog entry.

The wind-up, and....

6 months ago I started on a rather overly-ambitious dating journey. It's gone by quick, and actually been pretty awesome.

I ended up with 14 dates. Some were more applicable to the purpose of dating than others, but overall I'd say an average of one date every two weeks is nothing to sneeze at. I didn't make my goal, but I did meet some amazing people, and got off my duff which, really, was the purpose of the experiment.

Yay dating!

The Circle of Life

Duncan died.

Not sure what happened. He's been acting a little lethargic lately, and when I got to school on Monday he was dead. So there it is.

And what else am I supposed to do but have a funeral service with my students?

For safety reasons I'm not including my favorite picture which includes my kids standing around Duncan's coffin putting on their saddest faces. Just know that it was super adorable and entirely hilarious.

So, here's what went down:

After recess we gathered in the front of the school outside our classroom window. I dug a small hole and placed Duncan in it.

Then I had the kids all line up,

take a handful of dirt, say their

goodbye, and throw the dirt in the hole. This was actually kind of tender.

I finished burying Duncan and one of the kids suggested that we sing something. We sang the only song I believed to be appropriate to the situation - The Itsy Bitsy Spider.

I told my kids on Monday that Duncan had gone the way of all the Earth, and on Tuesday morning one of my girls brought me a card. I thought it was an early birthday card, but upon opening it later that evening, I found this:

The inside reads, "Someone so much a part of us is never really gone." With the personal message, "mr.B I am sorry we lost Dunckenwe will miss him Love M."

I almost fell on the floor. SO FUNNY! My kids kill me.

Half-way there!

Date Number:

The girl: B-wo!!!
The connection: So many, really...
The setting: The WV Hales.
The plot: The Hales has a little-known, unadvertised Sunday fireside that they do on occasion. I have a couple of friends in the show so I took another friend - namely the inimitable B-wo - to the show to support our friends in this most churchy of shows.

B-wo is involved in theater out-of-state for the summer so she was at a meeting out-of-town and met me at the theater.

Sometimes, as an actor, I forget that when watching religiously themed shows I have to take off my actor glasses and put on my spiritual glasses. That's especially hard when I'm seeing it with another actor, and when I have actor friends in the show, so the actor glasses were on. It was quite the show. They only put it on about once a month, so it's not a very fresh show. There were lots of moments where B-wo and I sat there thinking, "Come one guys, line! LINE!!!" It was pretty funny. An excellent bonding moment for sure. I could go on for pages about the unbelievability of the plot, the less-than stellar acting, etc. but we'll just say the show had a good message. :)

Funny moment: When our friend in the show said something entirely hilarious and B-wo and I were the only two people laughing. I love it when that happens.